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QUALITY INDICATORS AND METRICS FOR CAPABILITY AND MATURITY IN E-LEARNING Grigore ALBEANU * Lucrarea se referă la principalele abordări privind calitatea pentru e-Learning şi accentuează asupra utilizării unui model al capabilităţii şi maturităţii aplicabil companiilor care dezvoltă conţinut specific instruirii de tip eLearning. 1. Introduction The actual virtual learning market is interested in tools (hardware and software) and expertise. This is an important argument to study, to review and identify positive and negative aspects in virtual learning and teaching. This paper considers the virtual learning paradigm and presents some aspects related to quantity increasing of platforms, e-content, e-trainers and e- learners. This fast increasing in quantity asks for quality evaluation. The next section establishes the terminology and the pro and cons arguments. Then a review of literature will provide quantity facts. Some aspects related to quality assurance for e-Learning field will be presented in the fourth section and the fifth section emphasis to the e-Learning Capability Maturity Model (eL-CMM) to be used for establishing the level of maturity of an organization working in e- Learning content development The concluding remarks and the section of references will close the present investigation. 2. Terms and significance For some authors, the terms ‘e-Learning’ and ‘online learning’ are used interchangeability with ‘virtual learning’. Considering the investigation realized by Anohina (2005), we appreciate that virtual learning is a subset of technology- based learning based on Virtual Reality Technologies or/and Virtual Environments. This a consistent approach when referring to Fuchs & Moreau (2006): “Virtual Reality is a scientific and technical field using computer science and behaviour interfaces to simulate in a virtual world the real time behaviour of the 3D entities interacting among them and with users having been in a pseudo-natural immersion by specific communication channels” [15]. Other terms as e-learning (containing: web-based learning, internet-based learning, online learning and computer-based learning), distance learning and Page 1 of 12
Transcript

QUALITY INDICATORS AND METRICS FOR CAPABILITY

AND MATURITY IN E-LEARNING

Grigore ALBEANU*

Lucrarea se referă la principalele abordări privind calitatea pentru e-Learning şi accentuează asupra utilizării unui model al capabilităţii şi maturităţii aplicabil companiilor care dezvoltă conţinut specific instruirii de tip eLearning.

1. Introduction The actual virtual learning market is interested in tools (hardware and

software) and expertise. This is an important argument to study, to review and identify positive and negative aspects in virtual learning and teaching.

This paper considers the virtual learning paradigm and presents some aspects related to quantity increasing of platforms, e-content, e-trainers and e-learners. This fast increasing in quantity asks for quality evaluation. The next section establishes the terminology and the pro and cons arguments. Then a review of literature will provide quantity facts. Some aspects related to quality assurance for e-Learning field will be presented in the fourth section and the fifth section emphasis to the e-Learning Capability Maturity Model (eL-CMM) to be used for establishing the level of maturity of an organization working in e-Learning content development The concluding remarks and the section of references will close the present investigation.

2. Terms and significance For some authors, the terms ‘e-Learning’ and ‘online learning’ are used

interchangeability with ‘virtual learning’. Considering the investigation realized by Anohina (2005), we appreciate that virtual learning is a subset of technology-based learning based on Virtual Reality Technologies or/and Virtual Environments. This a consistent approach when referring to Fuchs & Moreau (2006): “Virtual Reality is a scientific and technical field using computer science and behaviour interfaces to simulate in a virtual world the real time behaviour of the 3D entities interacting among them and with users having been in a pseudo-natural immersion by specific communication channels” [15].

Other terms as e-learning (containing: web-based learning, internet-based learning, online learning and computer-based learning), distance learning and

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resource-based learning can refer to virtual learning in a small or a large measure.

To be more precise, let us remind the following terms and significance [7]: • Computer-based learning - The computer is not connected to a

network, but materials are local (Computer-based learning is not a subset of online learning) [1, 20].

• Web-based learning - based on the HTTP protocol (X-HTML, XML, browsers, URL etc) [6].

• Internet-based learning - can use any IP-based protocol (ftp, e-mail, and proprietary or special protocols) and is broader than web-based learning.

• Online learning - based on networking (any kind of computer network). Internet-based learning is only a subset of online learning. The following technologies are addressed in online learning: text e-books, e-mail, forum, chat, interactive quiz tools, power-point slides, web-pages, audio and video materials, telephone (VoIP or classic), voice mail, instant messaging, video conference etc. [17, 20 33, 41].

• E-learning - a synonym for electronic learning (not only network-based or non-network-based) requiring an improved e-Competence [1, 6, 8, 10, 13, 23].

• Distance learning - covers both electronic and non-electronic based learning (for instance, the ordinary mail) [17].

• Technology-based learning - is delivered via any technology, and contains also the distance learning (including TV, Radio etc) [1, 11, 17, 27].

• Resource-based learning - the general form of learning, using all necessary resources suitable for active learners. This type of learning has to be based on knowledge society advancement and resource-competence.

• Collaborative learning - a groupware paradigm. The following tools can be used for collaboration: forum, textual chat, file sharing, audio communication, screen sharing, integrated e-mail, instant messages, polling, group calendar, video communication, whiteboard, workspace awareness, application sharing, floor sharing, version control, collaborative browsing, virtual hand raising, voice chat, collaborative viewing, synchronization of content etc.)

• Distributed learning - A resource-based learning with distributed resources (hardware, software and databases.)

• Virtual Learning Environment - an integrated set of online tools, databases and managed resources used in education, not necessary using Virtual Reality Resources. However, a common view on virtual learning environments refers to on-line domains allowing both synchronous (chat, conference, etc) and asynchronous (e-mail, forum, file transfer etc.) collaborative interaction among teachers and learners [5, 9, 12, 29].

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• Immersive Learning Environments - based on Virtual Reality Resources supporting immersion (virtual room, CAVE, virtual worlds, etc) [16, 22].

• Virtual communities - groups of real or virtual entities sharing the same interests, values, jargon, leaders, titles, ways of communicating and exchanging information and knowledge, according to Andreatos (2006). A special case of virtual community is based on Internet interaction. However, other virtual communities are active in real world or/and virtual worlds [4, 5].

• Interactions - are reciprocal events that require at least two entities and two activities (actions during interaction). Interaction is completely different from interactivity, which address only the interaction between user and technology. As interactions, we mention the following: learner-instructor, learner-learner, learner-content, learner-self instructions, and learner-interface. When deal with Person-Centered e-Learning the trainer should address [31]: the learner’s intellect, his/her social skills, and personality.

A virtual learning environment has specific components created by appropriate tools according to some widespread protocols [1, 6, 12, 37]:

• Avatars - can be created with Avatar Studio, Spazz3D, ICA etc. based on the H-anim protocol.

• The Real time Audio/Video Conferencing - is created using the protocols: H.323 and T.120.

• Streaming Video - listen to protocols as: RTP, RTCP, RSVP, RTSP and MPEG.

• Document Repository - is based, in general, on XML, but LOM, XMI, ARIADNE and IMS are other known protocols.

• Distributed Video Environment/3D Community - the functionality and user interfaces are based on VRML, X3D, JAVA3D, etc.

• Intelligent Agents - can be viewed as IBM aglets under knowledge interchange format (KIF).

• Translation system - is based on XLT or ISLE protocols, for instance.

Why investigation on quality assurance for Virtual Learning? At the European Council in Lisbon (March 2000), Heads of States and Government of the EU set the ambitious target for Europe to become by 2010 “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. The e-Learning program for 2004-2006 addressed the following priorities: promoting digital literacy, helping the deployment of European Virtual campuses, twinning schools via the Internet, promoting and monitoring the e-Learning Action Plan (eLAP). However, European Union, by eLAP, defines e-Learning as “the use new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as

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well as remote exchange and collaboration”. This approach addresses only a particular set of technologies, i.e. those defining e-Learning, and not the most complex field of Virtual Learning [2, 8, 13, 14, 19, 20, 26, 28, 32, 40].

Some advantages of Virtual Learning Environments are: Announcements - day-to-day information on a course; Staff information - professional biographical and contact details of the staff team; course information; course documents; online assignments, communications, external links and student tools (as shown in the next images related to my courses on Computer System Architecture, and Formal Languages and Automata - the Blackboard Platform1).

Fig 1. Course documents

However, critical aspects of e-Learning deal with: communication infrastructure (mobile broadband connection costs are still high), unavailability of e-courses for some fields (technical courses, vocational sector, etc.), there is no great experience in quality assessment for private e-learning providers, there is no enough expertise in tutoring, e-Content development, e-Learning assessment for technical, science and vocational fields, etc. Other critical aspects arise from the pedagogical and didactical strategies as Rosca (2006) presents [35].

1 The courses are offered to students (in-campus or distance learning) enrolled in the computer science program provided by Spiru Haret University.

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Fig. 2. Control Panel

3. Quantity Aspects Regarding Virtual Learning and Training

A lot of Small and Medium Enterprises, and Universities, including Romanian Universities, offer online courses, in general, in a web-based manner. The way of interaction depends on platform, tutor, learner, location and time. Creating/management virtual communities using AeL, Moodle, Fronter, OLAT, or Blackboard, to mention only some of the most known LMS (learning management systems) platforms require ICT skills (e-Competence). E-Content development requires the knowledge of a broad range of tools and specific scientific and pedagogical expertise. According to Ilia, Jugureanu & Istrate (2006), the Romanian Advanced e-Learning Universal Platform, as part of the IT Education System of the Ministry of Education and Research is an example of best practice in Europe with a large number of IT platforms (in high schools - more than 1510 networks, and elementary schools - more than 3228 networks), teacher training platforms (42 networks) and educational content (over 1700 multimedia lessons, 9500 individual interactive moments, 7400 simulations of classroom studied phenomena, 1100 emulations etc.) Universities use their proprietary platforms, Moodle or Blackboard.It is important to note that a large number of people is involved in educational software development in Romania (SIVECO competition2, Applied Informatics Contest3, International Conference on Virtual Learning4, National Virtual Learning Conference5 etc.), including 2 http://forum.portal.edu.ro/index.php?showforum=23 (last accessed on 23 march 2007) 3 http://www.cia.buzau.ro/ (last accessed on 23 march 2007) 4 http://www.icvl.eu (Project Coordinator: Ph.D. Marin Vlada, University of Bucharest, Romania; last accessed on 27 march 2007)

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active participation to international events (EDUCA6 Berlin, UNESCO etc.) Globally speaking, there is a huge number of conferences/workshops dedicated to e-Learning, as Wright (2006) proved [42].

Fig. 3. CNIV/ICVL 2007 (that will take place at Ovidiu University of Constanta; 26-28th October; )

4. Quality Development in e-Learning

Quality in the field of e-Learning is already an important issue both in

theory and practice. The Quality Standard ISO/IEC 19796-1 is the basic framework for quality development in organizations in the field of learning, education, and training. The proposed standard is an instrument to develop quality in the field of E-Learning. It consists of a description model and a process model. The ‘Description Model’ describes quality approaches (such as guidelines, design guides, requirements) and documents all quality concepts, while the ‘Process Model’ is a guide through the different processes when developing learning scenarios [36]. The ‘Process Model’ is divided in seven parts: NA - Needs Analysis, FA - Framework Analysis, CD - Conception/Design, DP - Development/Production, IM - Implementation, LP - Learning Process, and EO - Evaluation / Optimization. Every part is detailed in 5 http://fmi.unibuc.ro/cniv/2006/ ; http://www.cniv.ro (last accessed on 23 march 2007) 6 http://forum.portal.edu.ro/index.php?showtopic=56074 (last accessed on 23 march 2007)

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sub-processes.When applying a quality assessment plan, the researcher can obtain valuable information concerning the student expectations, like: professional or career enhancement, flexibility, technology innovation, applicable content, active participation, responses-feedback, affective feedback, focused messaging.Also, when dealing with virtual learning, any organization, trainer (instructor) or learner has to consider the following items: Context Standards (learning communities, leadership and resources), Process Standards (planning online learning goals, professional evaluation, impact evaluation, design, learning, and collaboration), and Content Standards (equity and quality).

According to Ehlers (2007), there are four type of learning groups/individuals [13]:

• The individualist is a person content oriented, practicing a self-directed learning based on individualized learning scenarios.

• The result-oriented person is independent and goal-oriented using learn- and media- literacy and prefer to work in integrated manner.

• The pragmatic student asks for a personalized learning environment and tutor support, information and advise without additional costs.

• The ‘Avant-Gardist’ is interaction-oriented, working in virtual learning groups, using media and new technologies, having an increased level of interaction with tutor. He or she is a good communicator and an active person in discussion phases.

These target groups show that a powerful model is necessary for quality development. The model outlined in Ehlers (2007) is a sequence of four steps involving a need analysis (in three iterative parts: analysis of current state, negotiation, and final definition), a decision phase (requiring Quality Knowledge, Quality Analysis and Quality Innovation expertise), realization phase (based on Quality Experiences) and incorporation phase (under a critical analysis activity.)

An European survey on quality and e-Learning shows, according to Massy (2002), that [26]:

• The quality of e-Learning: ‘fair’ or ‘poor’- 61% (1% - excellent, 5% -very good, 33%-good);

• The two most important criteria for evaluating quality in e-Learning are that it should ‘function technically without problems across all users’ and have ‘clearly explicit pedagogical design principles appropriate to learner type, needs, and context’.

This performance is improved year by year, and Romania is proud to have a good experience in e-Learning, Virtual instrumentations, and courses in Virtual Reality are already given in some universities including Bucharest University, “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Ovidius University of Constanta, etc.

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5. The e-Learning Capability Maturity Model Maturity models were used long time ago as Manford & McSporran

(2003) already stated. Recently, an important model for software organisations was developed and applied for rating and improving the capability and maturity of such companies. Albeanu et al (2005) consider the usage of CMM [38] in the framework of a Total Quality Management approach when deal with software [3]. Such an approach can be easily extended for companies working for e-Learning content development. Maturity models, according to Manford & McSporran (2003), are based on the following aspects [25]:

• The metrics (measurement) - which metrics can be used and how long did this task take? How much is the cost of such a development?

• The maturity hierarchy - consisting in a number of levels or stages showing the performance in particular organisational processes and providing useful information for improving capability.

• Proceeding to the next level is important because the processes that are better defined can lead to better products.

The e-Learning Capability Maturity Model (eL-CMM) is in a developmental stage and comprises five levels as the software CMM approach provided by SEI. For every level some key performance areas (KPAs) are identified. These KPAs fall into three categories: people, processes and technology. The first level - called initial - represents the immaturity. Success of such a company depends on the abilities, efforts and organization of individuals. It is an ‘ad hoc’ style for product development. The second level - called independent - claims about the existence of some system for the management of e-learning projects, but each project operates independent from others possible with a large bias. The main advantage is the possibility of data collection from projects to be used as a basis for estimation and planning of future projects. The third level - called shared - guarantees the sharing of expertise between areas. The processes are well defined. The main characteristic of the fourth level - called organised - is that systems and procedures (related to staff, learner, trainer, project management) are available as organisation-wide and the products will be of predictable highly quality. The last level - called learning - claims that the organisation has the necessary data to analyse failures during product development and deployment and perform cost benefit analysis on new technologies and evaluate new methods. This will be a guarantee for the success of the new projects and the all processes are considered as ordinary business activities. Compared against the Software CMM the naming convention is changed to reflect more the field under consideration. Also the KPAs are different in content. Let us denote by Li.KPA.Qj the requirement indexed by j of the mentioned KPA to attain the level i. The following lists show these requirements in increasing scope and coverage.

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L2.People.Q1: Staff and student support L2.People.Q2: Staff development L2.Processes.Q1: e-Learning project management L2.Processes.Q2: Quality assurance L2.Processes.Q3: Instructional design L2.Processes.Q4: Funding sources L2.Processes.Q5: Planning L2.Technology.Q1: Network infrastructure L2.Technology.Q2: e-Learning infrastructure

L5.Processes.Q1: Continuous process improvement L5.Processes.Q2: Knowledge management L5.Technology.Q1: Technology change management L5.Technology.Q2: Technology difussion

L3.People.Q1: Staff and student support L3.People.Q2: Staff development L3.People.Q3: Reward systems L3.People.Q4: Specialisation L3.People.Q5: Opportunities for sharing L3.Processes.Q1: e-Learning project management L3.Processes.Q2: Quality assurance L3.Processes.Q3: Instructional design L3.Processes.Q4: Funding sources L3.Processes.Q5: Standards and Performance Indicators L3.Processes.Q6: Planning for e-learning L3.Processes.Q7: Reusable learning objects L3.Technology.Q1: e-Learning infrastructure

L4.People.Q1: Staff and student support L4.People.Q2: Staff development L4.People.Q3: Reward systems L4.People.Q4: Specialisation L4.Processes.Q1: e-Learning project management L4.Processes.Q2: Quality assurance L4.Processes.Q3: Instructional design L4.Processes.Q4: Funding sources L4.Processes.Q5: Standards and Performance Indicators L4.Processes.Q6: Planning for e-learning L4.Processes.Q7: Reusable learning objects L4.Technology.Q1: Integrated infrastructure L4.Technology.Q2: Technology change management

To assess such a requirement, a set of questions/measures is used and a score is obtained. An 80% fulfillment of the requirements of previously and current level is necessary. A probabilistic-fuzzy approach can also be used as applied in [3].

6. Conclusions The paper reviews the principal e-Learning quality approaches and

emphasis to the e-Learning Capability Maturity Model (eL-CMM) to be used for establishing the level of maturity of an organization working in e-Learning content development.

Acknowledgements: The investigation on virtual reality applications and virtual learning (including quality aspects) has been done according to the research internal plan of the UNESCO Chair in Information Technologies at University of Oradea.

References

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* University of Oradea, UNESCO IT Chair, [email protected], [email protected].

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